It's not just music that gets ripped off, and I'm very conscious that anything I have worked long and hard on and supplied on DVD can be so very easily copied tens of times for almost no cost. A lot of us here are in this boat and it's something we must live with.

Of course our films are usually commissioned up front so that we get paid accordingly. Song writers generally work the other way around - they labour in the hope that people will hear and want to buy their hard work.

can't you remove the info/ "metadata" so the software can't even see that your using a song?

It's not as simple as reading ID3 tags from MP3s. They use an acoustic fingerprint, which is a condensed digital summary, deterministically generated from an audio signal, that can be used to identify a song. (Wikipedia)

There are several methods people have found to be effective in defeating YouTube's and Facebook's fingerprinting algorithms, such as not using the first 30 seconds of the song, or inserting a period of silence before the music begins, or mixing with some room ambiance or other noise. This may explain why YouTube has apparently not identified all videos with copyright music. But, they are constantly tweaking and improving the software, so what fools it today may not fool it tomorrow.

Chris is right. There's a cool website Pandora which is a music radio station where you type in a band you like (Metallica, Rolling Stones etc) and it finds additional similar bands, not really by genre, or others opinion, but by some intense algorythm of beats per minute, guitar riffs, drum speed & volume. Worth checking out & reading wiki on.

As for youtube, funny just a few days ago I saw a homemade video with no sound. After checking my volumes & everything I saw a note saying they didn't have the copyright to the audio (I guess it was a song), so youtube kept the video up but just without sound. Pretty worthless without it, but they must have begun cracking down alot recently.

Technically that would be personal use, as I stated in my post earlier. It's not the personal DVDs that are the issue here - it is the posting of highlights clips and love story clips on the web that contain copyrighted music. Once it is made public it becomes liable for royalty collection, and opens you up to a slew of lawsuits from record companies, publishers, writers, and artist management companies.

The days of the Wild West Internet are coming to an end, and our privacy laws will probably be eroded (even more than they already are) as well to facilitate the policing of "intellectual content". This thorny issue may be what eventually corporatizes the Internet completely - and what very well might also kill free speech on the net, but that's another issue entirely.

Question: What if the bride/groom have purchased the song and thereby have the right to have it used on their personal videos? Should not that be legal?

I feel that 'should be legal' but it's written clearly on every CD that any copying, public performance, broadcasting etc etc is illegal. So that means if you've bought the disc or paid for the download you cannot legally copy it.

Tom -
This specific scenario has been debated at length on these forums, and in fact there's an offer of significant support if one should be sued under this VERY narrow scenario, i.e. that the couple owns the CD or whatnot of the song, and it is "media shifted" onto the video.

The logic is that they have the right to play the song, having purchased it legitimately, and in theory could play the CD and the video simultaneously without falling afoul of the law. The mixing of the two together for personal use should not become illegal - (search "Carterphone" on DVi for a thread on this recombination of technology).

Keep in mind this is VERY narrow. Open, online distribution of the video (aka YouTube) would be infringement. There is the question of if one can legally play it for friends and family in their own living room legally, at what point does it become illegal to "share" with those same people utilizing the miracle of the Internet?

One would expect that obviously a video posted without password protection that ANYONE can access would be infringement, but we've also discussed the "top 10 hit" wedding march from last year that hit it big time while infringing on the Chris Brown song being played...

The one take away is that law is messy, and IP law is a REALLY messy area with the digital revolution - it wasn't nearly the problem before everything can be expressed as 1's and 0's and can be easily copied by even a cheap desktop or laptop computer.

As I said earlier, the simplest solution would be for IP holders to work with online video sites to create an acceptable agreement whereby the IP holder gets compensated or benefits from online views utilizing the IP.

It's sad that this whole matter has become such a bugbear for us all, but that's partly because the law involved is civil and the litigant initiating the action will only do so if there's a reasonable chance of recovering the damages and costs they're awarded. Chances are if a large recording organisation sued a couple of video people they might bankrupt a couple of people indulging in their hobby but probably achieve little else. Even the largest wedding producers aren't high profile enough to justify the time and expense.

Many years ago one of London's largest AV production houses used some commercial music in a programme for BP, the big oil company without negotiating or paying the fees. The copyright holders, through their organisation if my memory is correct, sued and won - and more than justified their time and trouble.

The ripple effect through the whole industry was significant, for a while at least.

More recently the recording business in the UK has negotiated a way for small scale users like wedding producers to use commercial music and pay for a blanket licence via a small sum per programme disc sold. It doesn't cover public broadcasting so the Internet's a no-go area and sadly some video people still don't even pay this reasonable fee, but it helps the majority of us stay within the letter and the spirit of the law and also satisfy our clients at the same time.

I strongly urge people without such a scheme (I believe the Australians have a similar scheme) to press their recording industry to initiate one. It won't make them a lot of money but it will ease the angst about the risk of going to court.

I think that maybe we are seeing the direction of where we are headed with this issue. The now infamous "wedding march video" which everyone clearly understands was a blatant violation of the copyright issue was taken care of by simply inserting advertising on the video, for the sale of the song, as opposed to removing it from view.

To me this indicates that the "powers to be" decided that they would make more money with this solution as opposed to litigation. They saw it as a revenue generator that provided their client with a new stream of possible income and exposure to the clientele that they are trying to attract.

Jim, That may be true but it's dangerous to assume that. The "posture" of various agencies and companies can change at any time. Who knows what will come from the next board meeting or what the attitude of the next CEO will be? It's not worth the risk of finding out the hard way.

Tom -
As I said earlier, the simplest solution would be for IP holders to work with online video sites to create an acceptable agreement whereby the IP holder gets compensated or benefits from online views utilizing the IP.

That's the real issue for me. I'd happily pay a reasonable fee for song or other music usage if a) there was a central rights clearance site that issues definitive and unencumbered rights to works without months or lawyering or hassle; and, b) the fees were reasonable, i.e. based on actual use and classes of use.

As someone who -- billions of years ago, and in another country entirely -- once attempted to make a living in the music biz, I'd rather be paid something like $50 or $500 for small-scale semi-commercial use of my music than nothing at all; and as a video maker I'd be happy doing something like a capped per-click deal for each song used. Fat chance, of course, but I can dream...

The problem is MOST videomakers don't see $50 - 500 per song as reasonable - they see $1 as reasonable.

Ain't that the sad truth?! :-) I often get a little depressed about just how little artists working in one medium value the products of those working in another, even for things that obviously took weeks of studio work and months of effort.